Much has been written in the recent past about the need for handwriting recognition and the complications encountered in achieving a high degree of accuracy in pen-based computing. It has been acknowledged by writers and researchers alike all along and even as recently as 1992 that handwriting recognition is one field where there is great need for innovation.
One possible method of handwriting recognition is to use a comparator which would compare a hand-written character to match with a character stored in a database and display the matched character for approval by the user. Such an approved character in printed form can be used in whatever sequence might be desired, for printing a script such as in word processing. This exercise becomes practically meaningful in situations where letters cannot easily and swiftly typed from a limited keyboard, such as for example, while writing Chinese or Japanese scripts. Even the simplest form of typewriter which can be used for typing Chinese or Japanese language script would have in excess of more than ten thousand distinctly different characters representing sounds which have to be chosen individually for being picked up mechanically and typing therefrom in a sequence.
Attempts have been made in prior art to process handwritten discrete cursive characters in a manner suitable for computer processing. In one such system, character recognition is made on line and is distinguished by recognizing character strokes put in in real time and considered in the chronological order in which they are written. In yet another word processing system for Chinese language, all character strokes are standardized and classified into a predefined number of strokes, each stroke being represented by a key. The strokes in a proper sequence are entered using keys to complete a word much in the same manner as writing. In such a system however, the full advantages of a conventional wording processing are not always available, and no provision for real time writing which can be machine typed is available.
By far the greatest need exists for systems wherein the user writes characters having strokes using a pen, wherein recognized characters in printed form derived from a memory are displayed in a character display area. The efficiency of such systems depends to a large extent on the accuracy of recognition of the characters and the codification technique by which the characters are stored in memory and the manner of mapping handwritten characters to selected characters from the memory. The success of such a handwriting recognition system can be visualized as dependent on the simplicity and reliability of the methodology used for recognizing the elements of the written characters, i.e., the sequential strokes in the case of Chinese or Japanese language for example.